What I’m about to say may come as a surprise to some of you, but I think the free market is a grand thing. Property rights are also valid, useful and important. While I would usually include a “but…” at this point, I think this statement deserves to be dwelt upon. <\/p>\n
First, let me specify what I mean by the free market. The right of an individual to exchange property as they see fit. So long as the exchanges are mutually agreed upon and openly and honestly conducted, all is well and good. Given money to use as the exchange medium. There are a few ways that the market itself can be broken down. Restrictions on sale, mandatory consumption, and forced (particularly if uncompensated) taking head the list.<\/p>\n
Restrictions on sale, such as a ban on selling certain goods or services, whether banning handguns, research on stem cells (it’s a service or intellectual property being sold), the teaching of evolution or the practice prostitution is a disruption of the free market. Likewise mandatory consumption of goods or services is a disruption of the free market. Examples include in-kind distribution of goods, housing projects, and mandatory education. Finally, the blatant disruption is involuntary\/uncompensated taking. Condemnation of property, forced quartering of troops, income and\/or property taxes (to take a very libertarian view on things), and gunpoint robbery all constitute such disruptions. <\/p>\n
Subtler influences on the market include per unit taxes, subsidies, limited choice programs (section 8 vouchers, food stamps).<\/p>\n
Now, what’s so great about this? Well, let’s look at food for a minute. Let’s say everyone gets the same thing (think school cafeteria lunches, for example). It’s a meal with a mushroom dish, a chicken breast, and a pint of milk. And the people sitting down to eat it are myself, my mom, and So, why does all this matter? Well, we have a bunch of real world examples which are every bit as stupid as the hypothetical one I just posed. Particularly in the realm of government action. Over\/misprovision of public goods comes to mind. I know of one case in the bay area where a wealthy residential neighborhood with no wheelchair bound residents had an excess of federal funds that they couldn’t use because they had already made every corner crosswalk wheelchair accessible, and they had no other projects they could spend it on, and they couldn’t give it back. A failure of creativity perhaps, but when the streets are crumbling in a nearby adjacent neighborhood where more handicapped people live, and they don’t have the money to put ramps on all the corners, and redirection of the funding is not allowed, it makes you wonder. I’m sure there are better examples, but that’s just the one that came to mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What I’m about to say may come as a surprise to some of you, but I think the free market is a grand thing. Property rights are also valid, useful and important. While I would usually include a “but…” at this point, I think this statement deserves to be dwelt upon. First, let me specify … Continue reading “Praise for the free market”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}